Shorts: Cycling, Mclaren Racing, DAZN
British Cycling has extended its partnership with bike tyre specialist Schwalbe.
The renewal sees Schwalbe remain an official partner to the National Cross-country Series and National Cross-country Championships for the 2023 season.
The 2023 calendar begins this weekend with round one of the National Cross-country Series in Tong, where this year’s National Cross-country Championships will also be hosted over the weekend of 21st to 22nd July.
Darren Henry, British Cycling Commercial Director, said, “Following the success of Schwalbe’s Official Partnership for the 2022 season in our national cross-country events, we are delighted to continue our relationship for 2023, highlighting their commitment to the British mountain biking scene and our ambition to continue to grow the profile of events in the future.
“Our national series and championships continue to provide a vital launchpad for the country’s most successful riders on the world stage, including Tom Pidcock and Evie Richards, and we can’t wait to get another season underway this weekend in Tong.”
McLaren Racing has announced a number of organisational changes within its Formula 1 team.
The team has taken the decision to move away from a single Executive Technical Director role overseeing the whole technical operation and will now introduce a Formula 1 Technical Executive Team comprising of three new specialised Technical Director roles.
The team will include Peter Prodromou, who moves into the role of Technical Director, Aerodynamics. David Sanchez returns to McLaren as Technical Director, Car Concept and Performance after a decade at Ferrari, and Neil Houldey has been promoted into the newly created role of Technical Director, Engineering and Design.
Giuseppe Pesce has been promoted to Director, Aerodynamics & Chief of Staff, to support the running of the aero department reporting into Peter.
The restructure also sees Piers Thynne move into the expanded role of Chief Operating Officer for the Formula 1 team.
Global sports entertainment platform DAZN Group has acquired the non-exclusive broadcasting rights to the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) for the 2023 season.
The deals covers all of DAZN’s key markets: UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, France, Belgium, Portugal, Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark, Sweden), Brazil, and the Netherlands.
DAZN will broadcast the US women’s football league’s regular season, including the Playoffs, Championship, and the UKG NWSL Challenge Cup, with at least two matches per week and non-live content, including all highlights, shown on DAZN and DAZN’s Women’s Football YouTube channel geo-targeted in those key markets.
Andrea Ekblad, VP Women’s Sports, commented, “We are very excited to be adding one of the best women’s football leagues in the world to our platform this weekend. The NWSL adds to our growing portfolio of premium women’s football rights, including UEFA Women’s Champions League, Frauen Bundesliga, Finetwork Liga F, Barclays FA Women’s Super League, Vitality Women’s FA Cup and WE League. DAZN is the global home of women’s football and committed to increasing visibility around the game, closing the coverage gap, and driving its commercialisation. We can’t wait to showcase some of the best players in the world on DAZN.”
The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has partnered with the University of Warwick Academies to collaborate on a new project that studies communication in matches.
Linguistics experts at the University of Warwick will work with the FAW to analyse communication between game analysts and team coaches, in order ‘to improve teamwork and gain insights into how professional sports teams can achieve a competitive edge through language.’
Dr Kieran File, Associate Professor from the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, said, “It is fantastic to be taking our linguistic lens into another high-performance sports context and to be exploring such an important interaction: communication between analysts and football managers during matches.
“Analysts play an important role in helping football teams adapt to whatever the opposition throws at them. The ability for analysts and managers to effectively communicate with one another is going to be a crucial factor in ensuring game intelligence can be jointly built and acted upon during live match events.”
